She became gay again. This wild freak delighted her. It was a piece of supreme eccentricity, a finish which, amid her fever, seemed to her mind altogether original. It surpassed her desire to make a balloon journey by a great deal. She went and took Maxime in her arms, murmuring: "I hurt you a little while ago, my poor darling! But then you refused. You will see how nice it will be. Would your hunchback ever love you as I do? That little blackamoor isn't a woman!" She was laughing--she was drawing him to her and kissing him on the lips, when a sound made them both turn their heads. Saccard was standing on the threshold of the room. [Illustration: SACCARD SURPRISES RENÉE AND MAXIME.] Terrible silence followed. Renée slowly withdrew her arm from Maxime's neck, but she did not lower her brow, she continued gazing at her husband with her big eyes, which stared fixedly like those of a corpse; while the young fellow, overwhelmed and terrified, staggered, with bowed head, now that he was no longer sustained by her embrace. Saccard, stunned by this supreme blow which, at last, made the husband and the father cry out within him, did not advance, but, livid, he scorched them from afar with the fire of his glances. In the moist, odoriferous atmosphere of the room, the three tapers flared very high, their flames erect, with the stillness of fiery tears. And, alone breaking the silence, the terrible silence, a breath of music ascended the narrow staircase; the waltz, with its snake-like undulations, glided, coiled, and died away on the snowy carpet, amid the split tights and the fallen skirts. Then the husband advanced. The impulse which he felt to resort to brutality brought blotches to his face; he clinched his fists to knock down the guilty pair. Anger, in this restless little man, burst forth like the report of fire-arms. He gave a strangled titter, and, still advancing: "You were announcing your marriage to her, eh?" Maxime retreated and leant against the wall. "Listen," he stammered, "it was she--" He was about to accuse her like a coward, to cast the odium of the crime upon her, to say that she wanted to carry him off, to defend himself with the humility and the shudders of a child detected in fault. But he did not have the strength, the words expired in his throat. Renée retained her statue-like rigidity, her air of mute defiance. Then Saccard, no doubt in view of finding a weapon, gave a rapid glance around him. And, on the corner of the toilet table, among the combs and nail-brushes, he perceived the deed of cession, the stamped paper of which set a yellow stain on the marble. He looked at the deed; he looked at the guilty pair. Then, on leaning forward, he saw that the deed was signed. His eyes went from the open inkstand to the pen still wet, which had been left on the foot of the candelabrum. He remained erect in front of this signature, reflecting.